


The Little Things

by witticaster



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Sad Friends(tm), Stolen Century Spoilers, angry loquacious bloviation!taako, lup-centric but doesn't actually feature her, post reunion tour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 16:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witticaster/pseuds/witticaster
Summary: And isn’t it worth it - isn’t it? - for Taako to look close to blacking out if he can scrape up a memory of Lup?





	The Little Things

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to usedtobeaduchess and fraternite, real human beings and real heroes  
> speculatively set right after the events of Reunion Tour with spoilers for everything up to Stolen Century - Chapter Five

Everyone has filed out of the Bureau of Balance’s main building to find a saferoom for planning their next move, but not Magnus and Taako. Magnus has an excuse: he’s still pulling on all of his gear, making sure Steven is comfily lashed to his hip. Taako is just standing in the corner, looking at the floor. He probably has an excuse, too.

“Taako,” says Magnus. “Taako, we gotta go.”

“I forgot her,” says Taako, quietly. “I forgot Lup.”

It’s more complicated than that, obviously. There are Voidfishes and looming Hungers and necessity. It’s not a matter of something slipping your mind.

Taako looks at him full on, and his beauty glamor suddenly times out. He doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “How could I forget Lup?” he asks, voice shaking.

And Magnus doesn’t bring up all the complicating factors that answer that question, because none of that matters. All that matters is that you forgot someone who made you what you are, who nobody should be able to make you forget, unless your will was too weak to remember them, someone on the blackened bridge, what was their face like, _what was their name_ -

Magnus puts a hand on Taako’s shoulder. “She’d get it,” he says.

Taako shrugs him off. “You don’t know that,” he snaps, “neither of us know that. I can’t even remember what- fuck!” He squeezes his head with the heels of his hands, stumbling back a little.

“Slow down, Barry said we shouldn’t try to remember everything at once.”

“I don’t give a shit what Barold says,” Takko replies, his jaw tensed up. “Or what you say, or what anyone else says.” His eyes, a little less crystal-clear and dark-lashed now, broil Magnus from under the wide brim of his hat. “I’m gonna remember my sister if it kills me.”

There are a hundred years to remember. Magnus has been prodding experimentally at his mind for a while now, like poking through your childhood house, unsure if what you find is going to make you laugh or sob. But you should remember, shouldn’t you? Isn’t it better to remember? So that something mattered, so that it isn’t a faceless, nameless figure that contributed to putting you into the shape you are today, so that there’s a real story behind it and not a bad sketch or a weak guess?

And isn’t it worth it - isn’t it? - for Taako to look close to blacking out if he can scrape up a memory of Lup?

“Taako, come on, we’ll have time for this after the fight-”

“I’m not progressing this dumbass arc until I get some backstory,” Taako growls, curling in on himself a little more. “We deserve that. I’ve got something, I know I’ve got something, she’s- right there- she-”

He lets out a huge breath, caving in like a fireplace bellows.

“… Taako?”

He straightens up. There are tears on his face. He’s panting, but his hands drop to his sides as he looks at Magnus with something like wonder.

“Holy shit,” he says. “Lup could play the violin.”

Magnus feels like he just got punched between the eyes: the force of a concert hall, an echo in the mess hall, a chorus of devilish show-off arpeggios.

“She could play the violin,” Taako repeats. He starts to smile underneath the haze of hurt and strain. “She was really fucking good.”

He looks around the empty room, spots one of the windows looking out onto the lunarscape, and casts a Magic Missile into it without warning. Paying no heed to Magnus’s surprised and slightly angry reaction, Taako runs to the window and shouts, “Hear _that_ , you oily dipshit? My sister was a fucking _artiste_! Do you even know what violins _are_ , you feckless rube? Do you just eat them like a puerile Hungry Hippo, like they’re stringed McRibs? YOU CAN’T EVEN COMPREHEND HER CRAFT, YOU _ARTLESS FUCKIN’ RATSBANE_!”

The huge pillars of darkness are not impressed; the Hunger doesn’t stop pouring or eating. But Taako turns around and plucks the front of his robes in a “showed them” kinda way. “Okay,” he says. He glams up. “We gonna stand here or are we gonna kick their multiplanar asses?”

Magnus smiles, not sure if he’s jealous or proud. “You know I’m lickin’ for some kickin’.”

“Completely incomprehensible.”

“You know, like, licking my lips, like I’m hungry for a fight?”

“Do not,” Taako requests, putting up a hand. “But point taken.” He pauses for a moment, almost like he’s trying to listen for something, then looks up at Magnus triumphantly. “Let’s light them the fuck up.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey dude thanks for reading this all the way through, or at least absently scrolling?? have a chill day


End file.
